‘Has Karnataka High Court applied its mind judiciously?’: Supreme Court reserves order on plea against Darshan’s bail in Renukaswamy murder case

On December 13, 2024, the Karnataka High Court granted regular bail to him, Gowda, co-accused Pradoosh Rao, Jagadish alias Jaggu, Anu Kumar, Lakshman M, and Nagaraju K.

‘A matter of concern’

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan wondered if the high court would have a similar approach in all bail pleas before it. Justice Pardiwala asked Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave, who appeared for Darshan, “In a lighter vein, don’t you think the High Court has basically dictated an order of acquittal of all 7 (of the 17 accused names in the chargesheet)?”

“There are ways and ways of assigning reasons. The manner in which the high court has dictated the order, very sorry to say, but does the high court dictate the same type of orders in all bail applications? What is troubling us is the approach of the high court!… That is the understanding of the learned judge? And that too from the high court? We can understand a session judge committing such mistakes. A high court judge committing such a mistake!” the judge added.

Though Dave tried to defend the HC order, saying the findings are only preliminary, Justice Pardiwala said, “It is a question of perverse prima facie exercise of discretion. We are trying to examine, while exercising discretion, whether the high court has applied its mind judiciously. That’s a matter of concern. We will not commit the same mistake as the high court did. We will not give any judgment for conviction or acquittal.”

Eyewitnesses, evidence in Renukaswamy murder case

Appearing for the state, Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra narrated the sequence of events and the nature of evidence against the accused actor. Luthra added that while Darshan was in jail, two more cases were registered against him, and after coming out on bail, he was seen in the company of prosecution witnesses.

The court referred to the two eyewitnesses in the case and asked if their statements were corroborated.

Luthra said the prosecution had recovered photos of the actor with other accused from the phone of an eyewitness.

The court asked when the photograph was taken, to which Luthra said it was taken immediately after the assault. “So after the assault, the person clicks a photo with the actor?” asked Justice Pardiwala, adding it’s “unbelievable.”

Luthra attributed it to a kind of cult worship for actors.

When the court also sought to know why the Karnataka High Court said the eyewitnesses were not reliable, Luthra said the HC concluded that their statements were contradictory. Dave said the statement of one eyewitness was recorded after 12 days, and wondered what the police were doing for so many days.

To a query from the bench about bloodstains on recorded articles, Dave said the recovery was made after three days of the Renukaswamy murder.

Luthra also informed the top court that the examination of the 65 main witnesses will be completed within six months.

In September, the Bengaluru police filed a 3,991-page chargesheet, naming Pavitra Gowda as accused number one and Darshan as accused number two. Besides Darshan and Gowda, the others named in the chargesheet are Pawan K, 29; Raghavendra, 43; Nandish, 28; Jagadish, 36; Anukumar, 25; Ravi Shankar, 32; Dhanraj D, 27; Vinay V, 38; Nagaraju, 41; Laxman, 54; Deepak, 39; Pradosh, 40; Karthik, 27; Keshavamurthy, 27; and Nikhil Nayak, 21.

The police based its charges against Darshan on call detail records and DNA reports, which allegedly established his presence at the crime scene.